


Tatharrigiya

by lferion



Series: The Making of Dwarves [7]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drabble, Dwarves, Dwarves In Exile, Khazâd November, Nonbinary Dwarves, Other, Quadruple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9448808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: Dís bears many things





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to Zana & Morgynleri for encouragement & sanity-checking. Part The Making of Dwarves. Title is intended to mean 'She Who Continues to Carry/Bear'
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://lferion.tumblr.com/post/153159609690/khazad-november-d%C3%ADs) on Tumblr for Day10 of Khazâd November.

Dís had known from very young that she wanted children. She also knew that she preferred to be and live as a female — which as the youngest of the direct line of Durin, growing up in Erebor, was thoroughly acceptable, even applauded. She also knew that she wasn't interested in marrying or having a life-partner. That was less understood, combined with her other desires, but not unheard of. She _was_ of the Line of Durin, after all, and _he_ had bourn his children themself. It was a difficult stone to shape, but she would not be entirely alone in it.

When Smaug came, destroying hopes as well as lives, exiling the remnant of the once populous kingdom, sending most to cousins and kin in the Iron Hills, the rest to wander in the world of Men, working for pittances, enduring all manner of insult, Dís put aside her voluminous skirts and high-dressed hair for practical tunic-and-trousers and simpler braids. It was safer to let the Men think the Dwarves all male (rumor of Mannish attitude toward and treatment of women did not bear thinking on, beyond taking the lesson to heart and acting appropriately.) 

Men couldn't tell the difference even with dress and hair as signifiers often as not. Dwarves could, and did; were careful with forms of address in Westron and Khuzdul. She had her family with her, parents, brothers, uncles and grandfather, and was conscious of her fortune in that. Too many others had lost some or all. Dís made do, taking comfort with the other Dwarf women all in the same mine with her. Being female was a state of mind, not dependent on outward form. She came of contract-age on the road, after the second disaster of Azanulbizar, and the question of partners never came up.

The nomadic life was no place for crafting children, so she put the desire for them aside, keeping the idea of the deep in her heart. Thorin knew, Frerin had known, some few others. But Dís was not at all sorry to set her steps toward the Blue Mountains, and the hope of a fixed abode, after the battle. Steady employment, the company of other Dwarves, the possibility of time and space enough to Make rather than just produce. Ered Luin provided. She had never felt so complete and accomplished (also awed and afraid) holding her sons in her arms.


End file.
